Composer: Nigel Westlake
Title: The Invisible Man
Category: Percussion Quartet
Instrumentation: Percussion 1, Percussion 2, Percussion 3, Percussion 4
Difficulty: Advanced
Publisher: Rimshot Music
Description:
From as early as 1902 Australian musicians used film as part of their stage performances.
Among these were the Corricks, a family of talented musicians, who recognized the potential of film to add an extra dimension to their work.
The Corricks began touring in 1901 & traveled extensively throughout Australiasia, England & South East Asia for 13 years.
The family (eight women & two men) used projected lantern slides & film to provide background scenes for their musical performances.
A typical Corrick program was a mixture of vocal & instrumental musical recitals that opened & closed with film. The program lasted about 50 minutes, & featured a mix of film genres: comedies, trick films, travel or scenic footage (known as “actuality”) & occasionally, melodramas.
By the time they retired from touring in 1914, the family held over 100 film titles, including an outstanding example of early trick photography, “The Invisible Men”.
Produced in France in 1907 by Pathe Freres,The Invisible Men” is about a wizard and his partner who create a potion that makes them invisible. After they leave, two other men break in and take the mixture and use it to steal clothes and food. They are pursued by the law, but the wizard and his partner are arrested by mistake. The wizard turns the judge and court officials into giant walking vegetables.
The Invisible Men was commissioned by Synergy Percussion in 1996 with generous financial assistance from The University of Technology, Sydney.
Annotated by Dan Pessalano